Let’s talk about sales objections. Part 4 of why the sales culture needs to change.
Sales objections are the quintessential sign that you sold it wrong. Let that sink in for a second. If you’re getting objections you have sold it wrong. It means you got ahead of your buyer. It means you don’t understand what you’re selling to them.
There’s a bunch of types of sales objections but if you’re hearing things like you don’t have this feature, will you have this feature in the future, we need that feature, you’re too expensive, your competition has this and you don’t or any similar objection then you’re buyer is telling you that they don’t understand how you can help them with what you recommended.
You recommended or built a proposal or pitched something to your buyer that they can’t see the benefit. If you get to this point, if you’re preparing a recommendation, pitch or proposal and you don’t 100% understand why they should buy and why your product is to their benefit then you simply sold it wrong.
This is what sales objections do, they highlight the missteps in your selling process. When I sit down with salespeople and they start telling me about the customer objections, concerns or questions and they’re not sure they want to buy because of x, y, or z – my first question to them is how did you not see that coming? How did we get here?
If you properly diagnosed the problem, you should never be recommending something that doesn’t fit. If it doesn’t fit, you don’t recommend it, and there are no sales objections.
If it does fit and you make the proper recommendation then there should be no objections because you walked them through it.
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In the rare case that there are still sales objections you’re in a position to spin it back on them. You say “Hey, I’m confused, you said this is where you are today, this is where you want to get, these are the problems, why is this an issue?” This is where the customer realizes you’re right – “good point, not a big deal.” Objections gone, poof.
Objections are because you’re not selling properly. You’re getting ahead of the buyer. You running to the pitch, demo, and proposal too quickly. You’re not properly diagnosing the problems they’re struggling with, the impacts those problems are having on them and the root causes. Why are those problems happening in the first place? When you don’t do that you get ahead of the buyer and the buyer responds with objections.
I find it funny that for 50-60 years sales trainers, methodologies, gurus, and books all talk about overcoming objections. Why don’t we stop them in the first place. They’re talking about overcoming objections after they’ve taught you how to “sell.” If they taught you how to sell correctly in the first place, overcoming sales objections shouldn’t be a thing. You shouldn’t be getting objections or so few that learning to overcome them is not a full lesson or something that you need to be practicing.
Can we all agree to stop allowing sales objections to happen in the first place. Let’s all agree to take the time to learn how to sell right the first time. Let’s learn to properly diagnose, properly understand what’s happening in the buyer’s environment, let’s learn to properly understand what the root cause are, what’s causing those business problems.
Then, and only then, let’s learn to properly start talking about us and how we can help the buyer solve those problems and achieve their desired outcome.
Listen, if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times – our job is to help not to sell. If you don’t understand a customer’s problems, impacts, and root causes, then you cannot help. If you’re not helping you’re selling. If you’re selling then you are creating the environment for objections to arise.
So there you go, salespeople, sales managers, sales leaders, if you’re getting sales objections that’s a sign that you’re doing something wrong.
If you or your organization want to start changing the sales culture and getting less sales objections, click here to schedule a call with our sales team.
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